Poetry by the Numbers

Would you believe me if I told you that you don’t need all those expensive poetry-writing books that everyone is trying to sell you? Well, you don’t! So stop clicking and start reading.

Let’s say you’re the average person who gets up in the morning, reads some poetry with your Honey Nut Cheerios, hops on a jammed subway car with your poetry newspaper folded vertically in half, works from 9 to 5 with only a few poetry breaks in between, and then after a long day comes home to read some inspirational sonnets in the warm glow of your inglenook. You’re tired of being part of the poetry-consuming masses and want to become part of the poetry-producing masses. Familiar? Then this column is for you.

Writing poems is as easy as A-B-B-A (that’s poetry talk, not the Swedish pop supergroup). Whenever you need a kick-start for your poetry, turn to this handy guide of clearly numbered, easy-to-memorize tips. In no time at all, heartwarming cinquains will be coming out your “arse” (as the Brits say).


1. Animals and Your Soul
If you’re like most people, baring your soul is tough, so the first thing you should do is get yourself an avatar from the animal world on which you can project your fears, your loves, and, most importantly, your festering hates. We suggest finding an outcast member of the animal kingdom to represent your soul’s voice. Perhaps start with a lemur. Say what you really want to say, but as a lemur might say it. Everyone will be all “Wow, I’ve never read a poem from a lemur’s perspective before!”

How You Can Use This in Your Real Life
Let’s say you live with six other people in a one-bedroom apartment in a big, dirty city. As an aspiring poet, you should see these people not as roommates but as poetry customers. Soon enough, word will spread about “my crazy roommate who writes these cool animal poems on Post-it notes” (that’s you!). Street cred is the first step to any career in the arts.

Here’s an example to use if your roommates are late paying their part of the cable bill:

On the prairie doth the lemur stalk, stalk, stalk
With its ears so noble and alive,
In April, at I Love the Nineties: Part 7, Ian and Barry did gawk,
gawk, gawk
You guys owe me thirty-four ninety-five (each).

2. Get Thee into a Journal
No matter what your style, true poetry fame is guaranteed to start when you get your work published in any of these popular poetry powerhouses. Go for it—stamps don’t cost much, and e-mail is even cheaper.

• The King of Prussia Review
  
• Avenue Cool
• Word Crash Quarterly
• Freak Werks
• Readysetwrite
• Stuff from Bob's Wallet
• Butte Review
• Gam Yrteop
• Words for a Big Blue Marble

3. The Heart: Broken, Smashed, Torn, Mutilated, Ripped-from-Body-and-Shown-to-You-While-Still-Pumping, etc.
There is no greater poetry factory within your body than the heart. Sure, the brain is important. And there’s a lot of exciting poetry that starts with your genitals, but historically, you can’t go wrong by letting your heart take the lead.

Tip!
For poetry’s sake, try to date as many people as possible who are not right for you. If you play your cards wrong, your catastrophically heartbreaking loss will be poetry’s gain. And don’t forget, your rebound relationship should be with an agent.

An Example Free for You to Borrow for Inspiration:

It seems like it was just this afternoon that my heart texted you about us
spending the holiday weekend with my parents.
And texted you again.
It seems like it was just this evening that my heart came home to find you
loading up the prophetically named Ford Escape with all your stuff.
And then you were gone.
And now it is just, you know, my heart and me and the
Wii your cousin gave us.

4. Trees, Leaves, Flowers, Forests, and the Like
God made all this nature stuff for us to use in our poetry, so go for it! Don’t let God down!


5. How Ennui Can Be Your Friend
You’re bored with your life. That’s a scientific fact. But now you can take the inner sadness that drives you to the Wendy’s late-night take-out window and turn it into poetry bucks! Do you know what your life is filled with? Ennui, that’s what. Goddamn ennui. Use it. Turn your boring life into poetry, and people will flock to your work to feel better about their own lives.

Quick Example That You Can Put on Your Blog

The best part of my day is when I sit and stare at my backup dog that I can’t think of a name for.

6. Catchy Titles
Many aspiring poets give up because they can’t come up with a decent title for their work. Not you, because now you can plug your ideas into this proven Poetry Title Matrix:

• Throw together any combination of a name, location, event, fear, and symbolic body part: “The Battle Creek Crafts Fair That Haunts Stu Mandelbaum’s Phantom Leg”
• To go postmodern, combine a kitschy TV character with something really heavy: “Boss Hogg Laments the Death of the West”
• Use “On” plus a common occurrence: “On Trying to Grab Sunglasses from Under the Car Seat”

Easy! Next thing you know, you’ll be in Words for a Big Blue Marble.


7. Being Brave Through Your Poetry
Who needs the anonymity of the Internet when you have poetry? Tell your supervisor what you really think of him! Admit to your dirty thoughts about Francesca in Marketing! Come out of the closet! If you do it all through your “poetry,” you’re safe under the Law of Poetic License, and no one is allowed to be mad at or disgusted by you. Win-win!


8. Traumatic Experiences – Think!
Don’t let professional psychiatrists erase everything! Every car you slept in as a kid is worth at least three stanzas of an ode, and every soccer-league playoff your parents skipped should be good for a limerick.


And Lastly, for Inspiration . . . Take This Road!
Little-known fact: Bob Frost wrote his famous poem “The Road Not Taken” while working as “the fourth-best cobbler in New England.” However, after that poem hit the streets, he was off to the races, poetry-popularity–wise.

Whether you’re a philosophical shoe repairer or just languishing in accounts receivable, give yourself a pat on the back, because by reading this, you’ve taken your first step toward declaring out loud to strangers: “I’m a poet, you guys!”